Reuters purges photo database

Reuters has withdrawn all photographs taken by Beirut-based freelance Adnan Hajj from its database after establishing that he had altered not one, but two, images since the start of the conflict between Israel and the Lebanon.

The news agency has also instituted "a tighter editing procedure" for images of the war in the Middle East conflict after what it calls "the gravest breach" of Reuters standards.

Reuters' new procedure will "ensure that no photograph from the region would be transmitted to subscribers without review by the most senior editor on the Reuters global pictures desk".

Tom Szlukovenyi, the Reuters global picture editor said: "There is no graver breach of Reuters standards for our photographers than the deliberate manipulation of an image.

"Reuters has zero tolerance for any doctoring of pictures and constantly reminds its photographers, both staff and freelance, of this strict and unalterable policy."

Yesterday Reuters told Hajj, a Lebanese freelance photographer, it would no longer use his services after bloggers revealed he had doctored a picture of the aftermath of an Israeli air strike on Beirut with the computer software Photoshop.

The photo showed thick black smoke rising above buildings in the Lebanese capital after an Israeli air raid in the war with Hizbullah.

Reuters began an immediate enquiry into Hajj's other work and today found that a second photograph, of an Israeli F-16 fighter over Nabatiyeh, southern Lebanon and dated August 2, had been doctored to increase the number of flares dropped by the plane from one to three.

"Manipulating photographs in this way is entirely unacceptable and contrary to all the principles consistently held by Reuters throughout its long and distinguished history," Mr Szlukovenyi said.

"It undermines not only our reputation but also the good name of all our photographers." He added that the mere fact that Hajj had altered two of his photographs meant none of his work for Reuters could be trusted either by the news service or its users.

"This doesn't mean that every one of his 920 photographs in our database was altered. We know that not to be the case from the majority of images we have looked at so far but we need to act swiftly and in a precautionary manner," he said.

The two altered photographs were among 43 that Hajj had filed directly to the Reuters global pictures desk since the start of the conflict on July 12, rather than through an editor in Beirut, as was the case with the great majority of his images.

Filing drills have been tightened in Lebanon and only senior staff will now edit pictures from the Middle East on the global pictures desk, with the final check undertaken by the editor-in-charge. Hajj worked for Reuters as a non-staff contributing photographer from 1993 until 2003 and again since April 2005.